My Athenian Tetradrachm came today! :)

I know I shared this before when I bought it..

But it just arrived today and I wanted to share my own pics rather than the Heritage Auctions pics.

What do you guys think? ^_^

This is my first ever Ancient Greek coin.

 

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Very nice looking coin.

 

A lovely Owl!

 

Thanks! According to the HA listing the owl on the reverse of this coin was made with high relief dies.

 

Very sharp looking tetradrachm!

 

Yes, the Owl on the reverse is very nicely detailed and of somewhat higher relief when compared to other mass production tetradrachms. The centering is also very nice. The color is excellent, enhancing the overall appearance of the coin. Quite often these coins are over cleaned to point where they are just too shiny for my tastes.

Now I noticed that the NGC description mentions that your coin might be an Eastern imitation, which might be true. If it is, it must be an early one, perhaps contemporaneous with the last decade or so of classical Owl production in Athens in the late 5th century.

One key indicator that it might be an imitation is the eye of Athena. As production proceeded with these coins, moving from the transitional Owls into the early mass production Owls and finally the later mass production Owls, Athena's eye, in the front begins to open up as it evolves into what will be the more naturalistic profile eye of the intermediate Owls of the 4th-3rd centuries. Since your coin has Athena with a nearly closed front of the eye, and given the somewhat different owl, I think those indicators prompted NGC to include the possibility of an Eastern connection for your coin.

For comparison, here is a mass production Owl. As you can see the eye is a bit more open in front, and the owl on the reverse is proportioned differently. The proportions of the lettering for the ethnic on the reverse and the floral design on the helmet are also different.

17.23 grams

 

Congratulations on your first foray into ancients. I think you're starting off with a real winner.

 

Blake, Congrats on your 1st Owl . I'm curious why you chose an Eastern type instead of the classic Athenian Owl ? I followed that auction for a while & was impressed at the results of high-grade Owls. One Tet that almost knocked me off my chair is pictured above. It sold for $9,000.00 !

 

Nice one!!

I just liked the Eastern type and it does say "perhaps" so it makes it more mysterious

 

The first foray is an owl. Good Luck in the future.. For ever. Cheers.

 

That coin speaks to me. It says...

 

Nice owl, Al!

I think the possible Eastern type owl is a good way to start. There will be plenty of opportunities to acquire a bonified Athenian Owl down the road for Blake.

As for the $9K price tag for an Owl at auction, what can be said, except that it is more lunacy taking place in the ancients market these days.

 

I saw that and thought, thats a pretty nice owl, thinking it was yours. Then as I read on I thought wow, thats an insane price. Its nice. But not $9k nice.

 

Do you have a link to the $9K Owl?

Thanks

 

https://coins.ha.com/itm/greek/anci...3091-32052.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

I paid about 1/9th the price for mine and I'd say the difference is quite small between the 2, though mine would probably be classified AU by NGC. Insane prices right now.

 

Nice bird, and interesting issue as mentioned above. The nose is on the coin, which matters to some, and I do enjoy the strike of the reverese.

Here's mine, which came at a budget price. With al the XF to MS specimens going around, nobody wanted this one because of the pits on obverse and reverse. I love it nevertheless. It's also my only Greek coin.

 

When there is no consignor but instead the auctioneer is selling the owls through their auctions, don't expect any good prices.... There are reserves on everything and the prices are kept artificially high in this way. It turns out that the hoard was indeed 40.000 pieces as someone wrote in a Balkan forum and not 15.000-20.000 as the US dealers have been purposely leaking. There are endless owls in every auction and there will be many more coming for at least another 5 years. I like owls so much that this was initially a bit demotivating for me but now I am disgusted with this situation.

 

Gam3rBlake's coin is very interesting. The style is rather close but I do believe that the coin is of eastern mintage, perhaps imitating a Flament III Athenian tetradrachm.
Athens Ar Tetradrachm 420-415 BC Flament III/II Obv Helmeted head of Athena right. Rv. Owl standing right head facing. Flament Obv III 16 Rv II r 17.18 grms 23mm Photo by W. Hansen Trying to distinguish the Flament III's from some of the imitations can be quite challenging. This particular coin does have a Group III obverse coupled with a Group II reverse. Thus we are faced with something of a dilemma. There are two possible explanations for this phenomenon, the first being that the style of the obverse changed before that of the reverse. This could indicate that a new die cutter for the obverse came in, and the individuals working on the reverse remained. The second is that there might have been a lacunae between the end of the Group II coinage and that of the Group III and some reverse dies were left over and then used.

 

Kazuma, I've foolishly overpaid for coins many times but I've never blundered on that scale before . I think it's hard to justify half that price with so many Owls on the market. I bought my 1st Owl about 2 years ago, pictured below. I got the coin from a Roma auction for $705.08, including buyers premium. At the time I thought I overpaid for that one too, but I don't feel that way anymore .


Athens, Cira 454-404 BC, AR Tetradrachm: 17.22 gm, 25 mm, 3 h.

 

That's a beautiful Owl sold by HA, but at $9,000, plus buyer's fee I assume, that's way up there where there's hardly any oxygen. There are collectors with lots of cash, but parking some of it in a coin, as nice as it is, will take a long, long time for the buyer to recover costs. Now I may be totally off base. Perhaps Owls and other ancient coins at this level of preservation and desirability might continue to climb. Will the bubble pop? Perhaps, but in this world of upheaval, the inclination of those with massive wealth to find cash havens will continue, as I see it.